Nantucket!

It's interesting to see how your whole demeanor changes as your environment changes. Although it was amazing to be home, and see my friends and insanely amazing family, I must say (to my own surprise) that I'm actually relieved to be back on the island. I suppose a lot of it can be attributed to the fact that I was only home for a few days, but the whole trip was pretty frantic for me, and I can now understand why I wasn't as successful as I would have liked to be when i was playing full time in NJ. I was just spread to thinly, and it's hard for anyone to succeed when unable to focus properly.

All that aside, the trip had some definite high points. The reunion was an explosion of drunken horrendousness, and it was really great to see some of the fools that I haven't seen in a DECADE. No real stories, just got bombed, laughed and danced with a bunch of other lunatics.

Thanksgiving was phenomenal - I ate everything. My family rules.

As for poker, I brought my whole setup home with the intention of grinding a bit to offset the cost of my trip, but that of course didn't really happen. I managed to squeeze in about 800 hands in 2 sessions, and made like 75 bucks, which may have helped pay for gay gas.

This weekend is Christmas Stroll, which is a huge event on island that I don't completely understand, but beginning next week I'm gonna buckle down and put in some serious hours. It makes me nuts to not be able to play for a few days, and then log on to P5's and see these kids killing it and feel like I'm not working hard enough. Frustration.

Home!

I've only been away about 5 months, but it's remarkable how different it feels to be back home in NJ. Nantucket in the fall is beyond slow, and to be back in civilization is great. I honestly didn't realize how much I missed everything. Oh, and shit is so much cheaper here!! Gas is "only" $2.93 here (3.77 on the rock) and draft beers are 1.75, life is good!

As far as poker goes, I have hardly played at all in the past two week, and hope to get some time in while here in NJ. On a depressing note, tonight is my TEN YEAR high school reunion, which is absolutely insane - to think that I graduated a decade ago is mind blowing! Should be a lot of fun to see some old jerkoffs that I haven't seen in years, and totally rape the open bar. Bang. I'll try and post whatever I can remember tomorrow.

Good session, technical retardation

Ugh, for the amount of time I spend on the computer, its pretty sad how technologically stunted I am. I played my first real cash session in a while for the first time today, and hopefully the results will appear below (it took me ages to figure out how to get this image cropped and transferred and shit on my Mac)

Although I'm technically rolled to play higher, I want to play it safe and start small and grind at the low stakes for a while. I'm starting off at .25/.50 NL on Stars, and will probably reevaluate the situation after about 20,000 hands or so. If it looks like I'm maintaining a decent winrate and solid stats, I'll then decide whether or not I'm ready to move up.

Anyway, today's session went well - played a little over 700 hands (on 3 tables) and won a little over 4 buy ins. The competition at this level is very soft, and isn't very good at adjusting to my loose-aggressive style. Once they realize how much more aggressive I am than the average player at this level, they try to "play back" at me by doing exactly what I want them to do - opening up their preflop calling range (usually out of position) and calling down as opposed to repopping me, which allows me even more room to outplay them. The few times I was legitimately pushed back were so few and far between, that overall my style was very profitable, and I was able to take down a ton of little pots without a showdown. Granted, a VPIP of 23 and PFR% at 15 isnt exactly maniacal, but at this level, with limp/calling being the predominant preflop strategy, I definitely seemed like the bully at my table.

Eventually I'll be able to post some hands, but cracking two computer related tasks in one day is far too daunting, so I think I'll retire for the evening and enjoy a glass of some nice (shitty) Bordeaux. Oh, and I woke up from my post-work nap at about 9pm, so I'll likely be up til like 8 am again, thus starting another phase of not seeing daylight of days hah. Later.

Rough Weekend

This weekend sucked. I had to bartend friday night and saturday morning at what could very well be the slowest bar in North America, when obviously all I wanted to do was play online. Perhaps it was for the best that my playing time was cut short, because when I finally did get going, I managed to drop almost 1K in buy-ins in like 48 hrs. Granted, I played a number of bigger buy-in tourneys (Sunday Mil, Nightly 100k, APPT Satellite), and ran like shit, but its still pretty disheartening. I was really primed to have nothing to do but play for a few days, and to have such dogshit results was really a disappointment. Oh well, at least I made fucking $150 bartending for two days. Vomit.

So lately I've been thinking I should get back into playing cash games. As much as I love mtts, theres no question that the most successful players (barring a few exceptions) are the ring game players, and that that is where the steady money lies. Granted, it really only takes one solid mtt win now and then to keep you goin for a while (or even change your life), but to be able to make a steady living, I think I'm gonna have to start focusing on cash games again, at least partly. Its tricky because one MTT can eat up so much of your time, but I feel I should start incorporating NL ring games back into my sessions. At the very least, it will help aspects of my tourney game out by playing short handed and so deep-stacked (which is definitely a part of my game that needs work).

Thats all for now. Must sleep.

First Post - Poker, life, etc.

Well, after keeping up with the blogs of other players for so long, I've finally broken down (mostly out of total boredom) and decided to start my own little poker blog. Although it can be really interesting and insightful to read the blogs of established players, I think being able to read the thoughts of an up and commer could be pretty interesting for other players, while allowing me to record my progress. Also, It it will give me a great medium to talk poker, people, and whatever other horrendous shit I feel like venting about. Bang.

My career up until now has been pretty much all over the place. Up until June 2007, I had played full time in the mixed games (Omaha 8 or better and Stud 8 or better) in Atlantic City for about a year. I had had some success in online tournaments, and had one deep finish in a WSOP event, but predominantly played live cash games, and definitely preferred non-holdem games (which are becoming increasingly rare in this post-Moneymaker era). The games in AC were great, but the daily commute, financial swings, and general insanity of my lifestyle began to take a toll, so I decided to take a break and come up to Nantucket. It has turned out to be a great decision, as I was able to actually enjoy my summer, while making some steady money and meeting some absolutely amazing people. I was also fortunate enough to find a steady backer up here, which has allowed me to play a pretty high volume of tournaments online, while minimizing the risk and sickening swings that tournament poker can dish out. So yea, all in all, life is good.

Results-wise, I'm really pleased with the way things have been going. I'm coming off of a great week with a few final tables, my 3rd consecutive cash in the Sunday Million on Stars, and an mtt win for about 11k. I'm also now ranked 50th in Massachusetts on pocketfives.com, which is pretty lame, but hey, I'll take it.

Thats about it for now - just wanted to give a little background on my playing and results, and next time I'll try to post some interesting hands or stories or whatever - thanks for reading!